Where do we draw the line as a fiction writer with traumas?
the sunrise on the day I crossed the country to Boston, a city and part of country where I knew no one
Entry started in Jan 14, 2022
I’ve been here only three days. The neighborhood I recently moved to is called Mission Hill. It’s a fitting name, because I am on a mission.
One of the largest appeals in moving to Boston was the colonial attachments this city has had in the past. For over a year now, I am slowly glossing over the French Indochina period and sheepishly touching my fictional manuscript that deals with the struggles of displacement and yearning of human and land connection, consequential to colonialism.
It deals with a great personal story of mine, fueled by my own monsters and curiosity…are the latter two words synonymous?
It bore out of questions when I was young asking my parents why everything,
I have come here in desperation, to delineate the crumpled jargon to sift through my mind. I left my family, for reasons deeper I couldn’t put into words yet. And when all had been said, that bandage ripped, I now find myself alone in a city where I know not a soul. A constant fear lodges in my chest of being misunderstood. I don’t think I’ll be understood by them. Must I always rely on the kindness of strangers to keep going? I think, yes.
This separation, this leaving, I find is necessary. As when one steps away, one is able to look at the full picture, know what they’ve got until it’s gone. Did I pave paradise, and put up a parking lot?
The Stanislavsky method or method-acting is when an actor fully immerses themselves in a role. It comes natural to me. Being brought up between American vs. Traditional Vietnamese culture, the frustrations that came out of it resulted in a conflicted perspective on life. It has been a constant battle of not only manifesting in my head since kindergarten school, but also in my daily life duties of growing up in a traditional family and village of a small town in Texas.
Quê Hương Vietnam
The Motherland
What I remember most in my short-lived travels in Vietnam during the year of 2020 were the loneliness of the nights on the patio of the high rise buildings. I was overwhelmed in a foreign country that was supposed to call me home. I felt nothing but lost. Could it be… that this empty feeling be the consequences and aftermath of ages-old colonialism?
I rarely experience elevation as I was brought up in the Texas coastal plains, so I felt significantly lightheaded and woozy being up so high. My mind tumbled and swirled the way stairways lead up and down the sides of buildings. I looked into a lot of windows and patios of people’s lives that were not my own.
So many lights, a far cry from my hometown with one stoplight. The traffic flowed naturally, and the beeping droned on and on, as often as the roosters did in my childhood to wake me up to go to school. I would huddle with my ukulele, strum a few chords, and hum to the few pop songs I once knew in my past life.
I became mentally isolated more than ever and longed to meet people. I thought of how much I’ve learned to socialize within the past few years in college. My social learning curve exponentially grew from nothing, as I was an awkward and quiet student in high school and in my younger years. This kind of slow-learning process stems from my apprehensiveness and sensitivity to others in life. It seems embarrassing to admit of not being a natural communicator.. yet, a part of me is glad of me for taking my time to learn things.
Some social techniques I picked up on were— when choosing to hang out with friends, how much longer should I give them to reply back in a conversation? What societal differences might we have? What communication tools must I use? Must I use my hands more, look them in the eye, or speak louder, softer? It boils down to the seconds and micro-gestures. It’s so crazy to think we humans do this all unconsciously in a few seconds when meeting someone. As a people-reader, I’ve turned out to be a highly conscious actor in life, and with it, came the pain, love, and sensitivity in my actions. As a writer, this is a good skill to have. However, this sensitivity must be guarded.
Wrapping up my past couple years of confusion, I took that time to become the greatest participant of life—doing the things I loved: spending time with my sister’s dog—Katashi, reading, writing, talking with internet friends, thinking of ideas, and traveling alone around Texas on my days off. Meanwhile, I was a barista at a local coffee shop, enjoying the low-stress perks it came with when I clocked out of work.
But to be able to do all these things, to achieve these freedoms, to entertain new ideas constantly running in and out of my head, like trying to smack a fly with a broken fly swatter— one is prone to being lost and frustrated. I channeled all of my anger and broodiness into a version where I felt sorry for myself, of not being misunderstood due to the high sensitivities I had.
I read and related to the works of Emily Dickinson, watched Killing Eve, to be fascinated of our darkness inside of ourselves, and lost myself on the internet and social media, consuming so much information, so much words, images, funny memes, and my head so saturated.
Like on a table set out before us, we get to ask ourselves who we want to be that day, that hour, which music we want our heartbeat and body it will sync to. In one minute I’m jamming to The Blaze - Queens flying the same as those girls in the music video, the next minute I see the possibility of admitting my love to my coworker and possibly asking them out on a date. I dress in undertones of my Pinterest boards. I’m dancing to the Spotify playlist that morning in the sounds of the coffee grinder roaring, the group-head banging the pressed espresso out. I make jokes to my coworkers and customers, numbing a bit of my body, overdoing it, because I do too much thinking anyways.
I’m dying and living at the same time. And I’m writing in my head all this time. So much to the point, it shows through my solitude in cafes, my constant desire to be alone, yet not be alone in this galaxy-riddled universe. It’s the walking contradiction of an INFJ.
I’m not a union soldier, but I think I can see myself as one.
Inside the Boston Public Library in Copley Square
UNION SOLDIER 20-45 male [1860],
AMERICAN VIETNAMESE 23 female [2022]
What do these two people have in common that are over a century and countries apart?
Earlier this year in Austin, I rode my skateboard through the neighborhoods. What’s the difference, really? When a soldier heads into the battlefield, when a young girl is about to move into a new city, so alone and afraid, but putting a brave face on? I rode high on the idea of freedom and sunshine on my face. The wind sweeps our hair and neck. Our helmets safeguard us from fear. Courageousness is a prayer that drums our heartbeats. Legs charged, stomping the ground, we run with adrenaline through our blood. We want to live for something, and we don’t want to die.
I have to admit I’m afraid here in this new city. But I’ve been told that these are things that one has to be afraid about. It means that means we care about it so much. This affirms my moving here so much.
Boston, I’m here to get that self-discipline. I am here to write. And I really want us to work out.
Words
Breaking apart from the mold that made me “me” has been bittersweet and a road mainly full of tears. I cried in Copley square when I called my sister about the barista job I was offered. When opportunity comes, we ought to be ready to seize it, no matter how unclear the path may look like. When we think of brain plasticity, unexplored territories and unfamiliar things allow us to grab new perspectives and forge new understandings of our world and ourselves.
To my family, as it came as a shock to them, like ripping a sticky bandaid with skin and hair, I tore apart from my nest, my home. I thought long and hard how best to remove this bandage slowly without hurting anyone. But I found that that is inevitable. People will always hurt. The adhesive between us and our loved ones have no solvent.
I was told from my loved ones:
“Why are you’re doing this? I don’t understand. I don’t think we ever will.”
“I don’t read books anyway.”
“Just so you know, every time you go back, mom’s hole in her heart grows a littler wider.”
Oh, to transgress, as I fought back tears, I don’t know why I was so goddamn proud of it.
And so, I reverted to the kindness of strangers.
My coworker Jenna assured me as I went on about my worries -- so powerfully and got my attention -- “Get this. You’ll never be stuck.”
Then another customer, Andrea, whom I confided in my moving to Boston, told me also -- “That’s good. You have to keep moving.”
Another coworker Pablo gave me a guide book to Boston, a can of tea (a pun of my name) to spill into the harbor, and some chocolates. I cried, because that’s what I wanted from my family but never received.
Then a kind person from my hometown saw through me and encouraged me, “To have that reverence for family, for a community who is often so limited to surviving that there isn’t time/resources for them to reflect and self-actualize and learn and speak. Yet, for us younger generations to be able to do so-- what a resounding sense of resiliency that has been passed down. What a beautiful and difficult inheritance.” Thank you, Annie.
And in many ways, my family can easily do this. But I accept fully of what they didn’t give. And their send-off and tough love has prepared me for the worst in situations like these.
My internet friend, Paola, continuously checks up on me and doesn’t get annoyed. I don’t feel so alone from time to time.
Many people root for me. In fact, I think all of them actually are. And I am so grateful. And I remind myself it’s all in my head. Most of the times, it’s all too much, and I have to take some moments to let is pass over me.
So these past few mornings since I’ve arrived in Boston comes with these seedlings of doubt and hope. I sow the hope ones. It shines so bright in the mornings when I’m walking out in the cold. It’s a meditative calm. I put my brave face on. I’m on a mission.
Lyrics at the end Introvert by Little Simz
And so it begins
The base is an amalgamation of everything
Rules are not to be played by rebels
The story of never ending
Your introversion led you here
Intuition protected you along the way
Feelings allowed you to be well balanced
And perspective gave you foresight
The top of the mountain is nothing without the climb
Only the strong will survive
Only the strong will survive
For the past few months, I also give much credit of my inspiration to the poet Emily Dickinson. Her words and pacing in her poems have captured the essence of my thinking and spirit. The TV show Dickinson created by Alena Smith has also tremendously kicked into gear in letting myself be my true self. I mimic the poet’s life herself and have even moved to her home state of Massachusetts. She’s an extraordinary individual. With her laying the foundations of feminine thought, along with the train of thought writing process by Virginia Woolf, I am inspired and profusely pour into a story of my own.